Quality assurance teams are steadily moving away from traditional development methods in favor of agile workflows. While agile has a number of advantages to offer, many QA professionals look to leverage technology to make the process even more streamlined and efficient. The cloud is one such tool that has been sought to improve testing capabilities and boost agile efforts. Let's take a deeper look at how agile testing in the cloud can be so successful.

Communication Across Long Distances
Agile operations place value in team collaboration and communication to generate ideas and make things run smoothly. This is often complicated by remote workers and teams in dispersed locations that must work together on projects. TechTarget contributor Francis Miers noted that nearly 60 percent of all agile testing teams are geographically dispersed, making communication difficult to maintain. Without this aspect, teams face the risk of redundant work efforts and the potential for new vulnerabilities as a result of mixed messages.

These issues are mitigated once the cloud is introduced to agile testing efforts. The platform ensures that everyone has access to the same resources and information, no matter where they are located. Agile Test Management tools will be essential assets to leverage in this way as they will help teams prioritize tasks and have clear oversight of project progress. Changes are also made in real time, ensuring that everyone is always on the same page.

"Test scripts, recorded defects, and results analysis can be all be stored in one place, readily accessible to all who need them, no matter what time zone they are working from," Miers wrote. "Projects become much easier and more effective, with performance improved as no work effort is lost through duplication or compromised through the introduction of errors and omissions during updates."

Fits Various Testing Needs
Another benefit to the cloud is how flexible it is. Organizations can use the platform for a variety of needs, ensuring that all testing bases are covered. Network World noted that QA teams can leverage the cloud for either automating cases or manual testing efforts. Since automation integration testing uses software to control test execution and run testcases repeatedly, the cloud is a significant asset for these efforts. Cloud environments enable programs to work seamlessly together in one place, ensuring that testing is occurring as expected.

On the other side, manual testing like exploratory, usability, and acceptance cases can still be done through the cloud. QA may even be able to leverage software in these areas that allow them to evaluate projects much faster and ensure that the application has the functionality it requires.

"Another challenge imposed today on many Agile development teams is the desire to shorten release cycles from months to weeks to even days or hours. How can you maintain reasonable testing when this happens?" Network World stated. "By making these decisions collaboratively within a cross-functional team, you have at least maximized the probability of coming to a sound conclusion."